Reply #14: I thought they had a commuter rail system back east? [View All]

We have one here. It needs improvements, mainly a change in the rules to prevent passenger trains from being delayed by freight, but it's not bad and is affordable.

I do think high speed rail on the coasts would be a great idea (California passed a ballot to finance one but it should really go up to Oregon and Washington and into Las Vegas too) but I don't think mandating coverage of cities of size X makes any sense when they're not all situated in a way that would make rail travel attractive. Maybe a line in the upper midwest too, connecting to the east coast line. But it doesn't make sense to hamstring the routes that would work by mandating lines in places where cities are far apart, airfare is cheap enough nobody'd really use them.